tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50939199183106349752024-02-08T04:56:14.353-05:00Notes of a Psychology Watcher ---Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. PsychologistEssays and Opinions. Book Reviews. Noteworthy Articles. Humor. Quotations.Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.comBlogger2154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-3929015977909125372024-01-23T15:01:00.003-05:002024-01-23T15:01:38.548-05:00<p> On comedy. Many comedians are interested in evolutionary psychology.</p><p>Comedy appears to support a left-wing bias. But he political left is preoccupied with an utopian world - a dream world. Comedy is hostile to this uptopian world view and tells us about the absurd, messy world of human behavior. </p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-50001042994654309312023-12-01T13:57:00.002-05:002023-12-01T13:57:56.543-05:00<p> A Love Song to Psychotherapy and Coping During Turbulent Times</p><p><br /></p><p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D.</p><p><br /></p><p>Book Review: Kay Redfield Jamison. Fires in the Dark. Healing the Unquiet Mind.</p><p>New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2023.</p><p>I think psychotherapy saves lives and is hugely meaningful and I think that one of the</p><p>unfortunate aspects of prescription drugs working well is that people tend to think that’s enough.</p><p><br /></p><p>-- Kay Redfield Jamison</p><p>From Fires in the Dark</p><p><br /></p><p>Kay Redfield Jamison is a psychologist and the Dalio Professor in Mood Disorders and a</p><p>Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as an</p><p>honorary professor of English at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.</p><p>In 1995, as chair of the Michigan Psychological Association Program Committee, I</p><p>invited Dr. Jamison to speak to our association conference. It was same year her book, The</p><p>Unquiet Mind, was published. I called her at Johns Hopkins and was startled when she answered</p><p>the phone, and she was surprised when I invited her to present at our conference because she said</p><p>no other psychological association had yet ever asked her to speak. She agreed to speak and I had</p><p>the privilege of introducing her.</p><p>Her topic in her presentation that day was “A Clinical Overview of Manic-Depressive</p><p>Illness/Mood Disorders and Artistic Creativity.” I was able to point out in my introduction that</p><p>her new book, The Unquiet Mind, was currently on the New York Times best seller list.</p><p><br /></p><p>About her book The Unquiet Mind, Dr. Jamison took a huge risk exposing her tumultuous</p><p>life struggling with bipolar disorder with the publication of her memoir. Before she went public</p><p>with her history of mental illness, Dr. Jamison consulted with her department chair who</p><p>encouraged her to publish The Unquiet Mind. The chair of her department said her book would</p><p>not jeopardize her academic career and would make a significant contribution to help people</p><p>understand mental illness and seek effective treatments.</p><p>Since 1995, Dr. Jamison has become an ambassador for mental health educating students</p><p>at college campuses around the country; giving lectures and interviews available on YouTube;</p><p>while writing many outstanding books such as Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and</p><p>Recurrent Depression (coauthored with Frederick Goodwin), a 1,262-page bipolar disorder</p><p>Bible; Touched with Fire, a study of the relationship between creativity and bipolar disorder; and</p><p>Night Falls Fast, a title taken from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and a review of the</p><p>history and overview of suicide, the psychology and psychopathology, the biology, and the</p><p>prevention of suicide.</p><p>She took the title for Fires in the Dark, from the English writer Siegfried Sassoon’s poem</p><p>To a Very Wise Man, a tribute to W.H. Rivers, the psychiatrist who helped him cope with trauma</p><p>he sustained in World War I.</p><p>This is not a book about specific techniques and theories of psychotherapy. Rather, Dr.</p><p>Jamison reflects on the origins of healing, the underlying commonalities of psychological</p><p>treatments, and the work of extraordinary healers.</p><p>This love song is divided into three verses:</p><p>I: The Mind at War. Healing the Broken</p><p>II: Healers of the Mind. Priest, Physician and Psychotherapist.</p><p>III. The Healing Arts. Hero, Artist and Storyteller.</p><p>The emphasis of The Mind at War is on psychotherapy, “because in recent years</p><p>psychotherapy has been relegated to the sidelines.” This focus on psychotherapy is a theme that</p><p>runs throughout the book.</p><p><br /></p><p>Dr. Jamison reviews the origins of psychotherapy, in ancient Roman and Greek cultures,</p><p>and as far back as our wide knowledge of the Neanderthals:</p><p>From earliest times to our own, in cave, village or consulting room, certain individuals –</p><p>healers – have stood out for being able to ease the suffering of the mourning, melancholic, or</p><p>mad. Long before we could treat diseases of the brain and afflictions of the mind, priests and</p><p>doctors laid on hands, listened, consoled, dispensed potions, and engaged the gods through</p><p>ritual and magic.</p><p>This chapter takes place in the “field and shell-shocked hospitals,” of the First World</p><p>War. Although the origins of healers of the mind dates back to the beginning of medicine and</p><p>religion, Dr. Jamison discusses what we have learned from nurses and doctors who treated</p><p>unimaginable psychic trauma and physical suffering during WWI. She notes:</p><p>Doctor, nurse and poet knew: Memory must be grappled with, death is a compelling tutor,</p><p>and adversity teaches.</p><p>Dr. Jamison tells the stories of nurses and doctors and the stories of those they tried to</p><p>heal. She discusses two extraordinary healers: Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, and Sir William Osler. Rivers</p><p>was a medical psychologist, physician and anthropologist. Rivers’ experiences as an</p><p>anthropologist familiar with a variety of cultures led him to “learn from healing rituals, ways of</p><p>death, from their gods and languages and arts, and from their ways of survival.” Rivers knew the</p><p>earliest ways of healing were psychotherapeutic.</p><p>Osler became the first physician in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was interested in</p><p>what makes a great healer. He recommended that young doctors read widely in the humanities</p><p>and make use of faith and suggestion. He was the first physician to insist that medical students</p><p>learn from seeing and talking with patients.</p><p>Exceptional healers such as Rivers and Osler knew the importance of memory was</p><p>crucial to healing, Dr. Jamison writes:</p><p>To remember the dead and the maimed, to know the faces of the insane, to bear witness to</p><p>the men they commanded or served with, was a start to heal.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the second section, Healers of the Mind, Dr. Jamison talks about “the role that</p><p>psychotherapy plays in building walls to protect the mind, and in giving order to a chaotic</p><p>personal universe; to exploring the roots of suffering, and in pursuing meaning and the purpose</p><p>of life: all of these while edging the mind toward risk and quest…psychotherapy and medication</p><p>underpin the modern treatment of mental suffering…but to heal requires more active engagement</p><p>of the imagination, learning, and seeking…Healing is a journey.”</p><p>Osler knew that work was an important part of the healing journey and referred to work</p><p>as the “true balm of hurt minds.”</p><p>In The Healing Arts, Dr. Jamison addresses the role of imagination in psychological</p><p>healing and discusses the importance of art, adventure, adversity and courage. She writes that to</p><p>accompany and engage those who struggle and suffer, to let them know in words and actions,</p><p>that we will be with them, not for just a while, underlies our attempts to heal and goes on to say:</p><p>The active engagement of sufferer with healer is necessary to make sense of the</p><p>experience of suffering – grief, depression, trauma, madness, by learning how to navigate hard</p><p>psychological straits, to face painful memories, to gauge and harness painful memories, to gauge</p><p>and harness intense or erratic moods, and to find vitality when it has been depleted.</p><p>Dr. Jamison’s describes how some people harness the good that can come from facing</p><p>adversity and learn how to triumph over trauma. For example, she tells us about the life of Paul</p><p>Robeson, who was an American bass-baritone concert artist, lawyer, athlete, stage and film actor,</p><p>and professional football player who suffered from bipolar disorder, faced much adversity, and</p><p>led a life that inspired many.</p><p>Dr. Jamison tells us about the beginning of her treatment for mania, depression, and</p><p>suicide attempts – by a doctor and psychotherapist who accompanied her throughout the healing</p><p>journey. At the start of her psychotherapy, her psychotherapist asked her two questions: “What</p><p>matters to you?” and “How can I make a difference?”</p><p>Fires in the Dark sings a love song to psychotherapy as she advocates for moving</p><p>psychological healing from the sidelines to an essential part of treatment for mental illness.</p><p>Psychotherapy helps patients learn what matters to them and how to begin to triumph over life’s</p><p><br /></p><p>inevitable struggles, and face the tragedies, mysteries, wonders, and bitter-sweet joys of being</p><p>alive.</p><p>This is a book to treasure.</p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-72830018585125573722023-08-03T15:14:00.001-04:002023-08-03T15:14:24.477-04:00Identity Politics and Psychology<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">My letter published in the Wall Street Journal on July 21, 2023</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In his article, “The Doctor Won’t See You Now,” psychologist Andrew Hartz warns, “ideologies that have infiltrated education, medicine, and the legal profession have also invaded mental healthcare.” (</span><span class="il" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">WSJ</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">, July 16, 2023). We now have a growing group of psychological therapists who enter their offices with their eyes wide shut and their mouths open to repeating the latest mantras about identity-politics. In my 45 years of practicing psychotherapy, I have learned that there are as many minds as there are bodies. The more abstractions we apply to explain an individual’s life, the more reality leaves the room. People are individuals, not categories.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px;">Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px;">Psychologist</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px;">Plymouth, Michigan</p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-59292284010309401982022-12-17T17:15:00.002-05:002022-12-17T17:15:53.525-05:00<p> <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/affirmative-distraction">Affirmative Distraction | City Journal (city-journal.org)</a></p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-5882568830658502902022-12-02T20:59:00.002-05:002022-12-02T20:59:28.378-05:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">On Human Nature<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We will create a revolution in our understanding of human
nature, when we can explain how the brain generates the mind. We have no idea
how the brain can produce a directive, willful “I,” how self-consciousness
flows from brain tissue, and how we can go from tangibles such as
neurotransmitters and molecules to intangibles such as thoughts, moods, and
perceptions. We don’t know how brain facts become mind facts. We do know that there
is not a twisted thought for every twisted neuron. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Early in his career, Freud wrote a book about how the brain
worked and was connected to the mind — but he abandoned his work because of the
unbridgeable brain-mind discontinuity. He went on to propose his convenient
“fictions” of id, ego, and superego. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For psychologists, this brain-mind gap creates obstructions
to learning about human nature, leads to accumulating more information than
knowledge, and keeps many clinicians trapped in denominational conflicts such
as whether to assume a biological or psychodynamic orientation. It is not
possible to imagine what the obliteration of the mind-brain problem will lead
to in our conception of human nature. My hope is that we will come to a greater
understanding of the role of freedom in a world we are not yet able to see.<o:p></o:p></p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-74106171854026849012022-12-02T20:57:00.002-05:002022-12-02T20:57:35.810-05:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Makes You Stop and Think<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The most beautiful experience we can have is the
mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true
art and true science.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">--- Albert Einstein<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself ---
and you are the easiest person to fool.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">--- Richard Feynman<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Every atom in your body except for hydrogen and helium was
made in stars long ago and blown into space when those stars exploded --- much
later to be tossed into the air and soil and oceans of Earth and eventually
incorporated into your body.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I’ve always been struck by the fact that the number of
neurons in our brain is about equal to the number of stars in a galaxy:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>one hundred billion.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“If you traveled to the Sun on a high-speed train, say at
two hundred miles per hour, it would take about fifty years to get there.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">--- Alan Lightman<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from where
he emerges and the infinity in which his is engulfed.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">--- Blaise Pascal<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Thoughts on Human Nature*<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We will create a revolution in our understanding of human
nature, when we can explain how the brain generates the mind. We have no idea
how the brain can produce a directive, willful “I,” how self-consciousness
flows from brain tissue, and how we can go from tangibles such as
neurotransmitters and molecules to intangibles such as thoughts, moods, and
perceptions. We don’t know how brain facts become mind facts. There is not a
twisted thought for every twisted neuron. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Early in his career, Freud wrote a book about how the brain
worked and was connected to the mind — but he abandoned his work because of the
unbridgeable brain-mind discontinuity. He went on to propose his convenient
“fictions” of id, ego, and superego. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For psychologists, this brain-mind gap creates obstructions
to learning about human nature, leads to accumulating more information than
knowledge, and keeps many clinicians trapped in denominational conflicts such
as whether to assume a biological, behavioral, psychodynamic or humanistic
orientation. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is not possible to imagine what the obliteration of the
mind-brain problem will lead to in our conception of human nature. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My hope is that we will come to a greater understanding of
the role of freedom in a world we are not yet able to see.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>--- Steven Ceresnie<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*McHugh, Paul R., Slavney, Phillip R. <i>The Perspectives of
Psychiatry. </i>Baltimore:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Johns Hopkins
University Press. 1998, Second Edition. <i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpFirst" style="text-align: justify;"><b>On Medication for
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder*<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The idea of using medication to
treat problems of behavior provokes deep feelings and equally strong opinions
in many people --- despite that fact that medication for ADHD was first
approved by the Federal Drug Administration in 1957, and there is much research
support for the effectiveness of treating ADHD with medication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is even more true when the symptoms are
interpreted in moral terms: a pill for laziness? a pill to stop
procrastination? a pill for messiness? It is difficult for most people to
understand that ADHD is a neurophysiological disorder, not a sign of moral
failure.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When parents refuse a carefully
monitored trial of stimulant medication to treat their child with ADHD, I bite
my lip when many parents don’t understand that medication may significantly
reduce ADHD symptoms in their youngster and sometimes act like “glasses for the
mind.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am frustrated and sad because I’ve
witnessed hundreds of youngsters and adults benefit from ADHD medication ---
treatment that can save a child from a life of such problems as depression,
anxiety, substance abuse, school, work and relationship failures, and
unrelenting, harsh self-criticism – and begin to push adults with ADHD back to
a more normal path – at home and at work. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">Along
with a carefully monitored trial of medication, I stress the importance of
medication AND psychotherapy. Over the years, I’ve learned to take my cues from
parents, youngsters and adults about when they are ready for psychological
treatment.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpLast" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I urge parents who are hesitant to
try their child on medication for ADHD to talk with parents about their
experiences about their children taking medication, to consult pediatricians
and child psychiatrists, and to talk with experienced teachers. I urge adults
to consider attending a group for adults with ADHD. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I used to give ADHD adults material
to read – but when I inquired whether they found the material helpful, these
adults would describe how they left the material in the backseat of their car,
or a restaurant, or couldn’t find the articles among the stacks of papers on
their desk.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Sometimes parents with an ADHD
child or an adult with ADHD who initially refused to consider a trial of
medication comes back to me – in several months, a year or longer and are now
open to a trial of medication.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I evaluated a 10-year-old boy and
recommend medication to treat his ADHD. His parents were not open to medication
– “We know,” they say, “how the pharmaceutical companies are more concerned
about profits than people. We are not going down that road.” These same parents
report having dinner with their long-time couple friends, Bill and Jane. At the
dinner, the mother of the son I evaluated, tells her friends that she went to a
psychologist who had the nerve to recommend that her son take medication. To
her surprise, Bill becomes angry, with veins popping out of his forehead,
saying he recently started taking Adderall to treat his chronic, previously
undiagnosed ADHD. In a loud voice, he described his anger at growing up with untreated
ADHD --- and experiencing many of the side-effects of his parents’ refusal to
allow him to take medication. Side-effects such as school failure, substance
abuse, and years of relationship problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A thoughtful, sophisticated teacher
came to me about her 10-year-old son’s<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">psychological difficulties.
She said, “I heard an advertisement for a brain clinic on a Christian radio
station. I went to their website and I was impressed by their research and
testimonials of their patients.” She then took her son to this neighborhood
brain mapping clinic -- at a fee of two-thousand dollars for ten treatments.
When I asked her son about the treatments, he said:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The first time I had to
repeat some numbers I read – they put these things on my head to get my brain
waves to go through head phones and I get to listen to it. It was different
brain waves every time – and sometimes it repeated. I fell asleep once and it
helped me sleep better. I’m not worrying about sleeping. I listened to ocean
noises and that helped me listen better.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When the brain clinic treatment did not work, the parents
and the youngster experienced a successful trial of pharmacotherapy for ADHD. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i>. <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Many years ago, there was a news
report of an adolescent who was taking Ritalin who committed suicide. Now
that’s a tragic outcome and important for all clinicians to pay attention to
and learn from. By coincidence, a pediatrician called me shortly after this
report of the adolescent suicide, to tell me he had just moved here and was
taking referrals for youngsters suspected of having ADHD and learning
disabilities. He moved here from the state where this adolescent killed himself
and he knew the child psychiatrist who prescribed this youngster Ritalin. What
did not come out in the news reports of this tragedy, he said, was that the
adolescent’s stepfather was molesting him for years.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Parents of a youngster with ADHD
decided to consult a medical doctor specializing in holistic medicine for
treatment of their son to avoid pharmacotherapy. The doctor recommended a
stringent diet – a diet, the parents said, was impossible to follow. The
parents said there were so many food ingredients to avoid, there was not enough
information on food labels to guarantee they were complying with the diet. After
a try of the diet failed, to the parents’ shock, the doctor recommended
treating their son with caffeine suppositories. The parents changed their
opposition to medicine and treated their son with a successful trial of
pharmacotherapy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Here is a list of the changes in ADHD
symptoms when medication treatment is effective:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>HYPERACTIVITY (trouble doing nothing): </b>fidgetiness
and restlessness decrease; patients are able to relax; then are able to stay at
their desks or at the dinner table or at a movie or in church<b>. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>INATTENTION-CONCENTRATION </b>is greatly
improved. It is not only that patients can concentrate better; they can
concentrate when they want to. Distractibility diminishes. Attention to spousal
conversations improve and frequently is quickly manifested in better marital
relations.<b> <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>MOODINESS</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both highs and lows decrease as do feelings
of boredom; mood is described as more stable.<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>TEMPER. </b>The threshold for outbursts is
raised. Patients are less irritable and angry outbursts are less frequent, and
less extreme<b>.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>DISORGANZIATION-ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIVITIES. </b>This
is evident at school, running a household, and work. Patients may spontaneously
establish orderly strategies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>STRESS SENSITIVITY. </b>Patients describe
themselves as having their thin skin thickened, ability to take life problems
in stride, feeling less hassled by daily existence.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>IMPULSIVITY. </b>Patients report that they do
not interrupt others while listening to them; they think before they talk; that
they have become tolerant drivers and that they may stop impulse buying<b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*Weiss, Margaret; Hechtman, Lily Trokenberg; Weiss,
Gabrielle. <i>ADHD in Adulthood: A</i> <i>Guide to Current Theory, Diagnosis,
and Treatment.</i> Baltimore:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2001. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Nurture and Nature<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #181818;">“Unfortunately,
psychologists know much less about how the environment influences a person’s
personality than is commonly assumed. People often talk as if the environmental
effects had been well understood for decades, and the new discovery was that
there were genetic effects too. In fact, nothing could be further from the
truth. The area of environmental influences on personality is a morass of
unsupported or poorly tested ideas, and, ironically, it is behavior geneticists
who have brought the most progress to the field. The irony is that behavior
genetics was founded in order to discover heritable influences on human behavior.
The methods such studies use, however, also allow us to identify non-genetic
influences, and say quite a lot about them.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #181818;">--- Daniel
Nettle<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">G</span></b><b><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">olden Rules for Mental Health<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Be honest,
realistic and loving with yourself and to those around you; assume a positive
outlook and make brave, positive life choices, going against the grain when
necessary; listen to your body and keep healthy and active; and do not tolerate
persistent discontent, whatever its cause, even if it seems minor.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">--- Daniel
Nettle<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Preventing Problems is Hard to Do<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Irving, a
90-year-old man has his son Michael buy him lottery tickets every week for
thirty years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Picking up the
latest lottery ticket for his father, Michael sees that his father has won 10
million dollars.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Worried about how
is father who has a bad heart would take the shock of winning 10 million
dollars, Michael calls his father's doctor, tells him about his concerns, and
the doctor agrees to call Irving under the pretense of repeating some medical
tests, and then tell him about his winnings in the safety of his medical
office.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dr. Bloom thanks
Irving for coming to his office to repeat some tests. Making conversation, Dr.
Bloom asks Irving if he plays the lottery. Irving says his son has bought him
lottery tickets for thirty years and he has never won anything. Dr. Bloom asks
Irving what he would do if he won 10 million dollars in the lottery. Irving
thinks for a moment and says, "You have been my doctor for many years. I
would give you 5 million dollars.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The doctor drops
dead.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>A Chaotic World<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpFirst">When Anna Freud was eighty-five, a depressed
young man sent her a lament about the<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle">chaotic state of the world, she sent him a
succinct statement of her credo:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle">“I agree with you wholeheartedly that things
are not as well as you would like them to<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle">be. However, my feeling is that there is only
one way to deal with it, namely to try and<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpMiddle">be all right with oneself, and to create around
one at least a small circle where matters<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacingCxSpLast">are arranged as one wants them to be.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">--- Anna Freud<o:p></o:p></p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-45507095895387170392022-12-02T20:55:00.004-05:002022-12-02T20:55:52.491-05:00<p> Satire</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #ff6600; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">An Early Career
Psychologist: Myth or Malady?</span><span style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #454545;">Steven J.
Ceresnie, Ph.D.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #454545; text-align: justify;">Approaching three score and fifteen years, I
have had the privilege of being invited into the private lives of many people
in deep distress - that's what clinical psychologists do. But lately, I feel my
mind and body are changing - my muscles are becoming more supple, my waistline
is shrinking, my pectoral muscles are taking the shape of a younger man, and I
stop at clothing stores to sample clothing worn by college students and young
men. I have started listening to music that matches the tastes of younger, more
macho males - I find pleasure in rap, heavy metal and alternative music genres.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #454545; text-align: justify;">On some nights, late in the evenings, I go
up in our finished attic and try on the fashionable attire of young men and
adjust my Spotify to play the latest rap tunes. There are other symptoms I
experience but I'm embarrassed to make these public. I dare not tell my wife; I
fear she would suggest I seek psychiatric help.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #454545; text-align: justify;">Yet psychiatric help, of which I'm most familiar,
is not what I believe I need. Of course, I'm aware that at my chronological age
any number of biological or psychological maladies may explain my unusual
behaviors, not to mention denial of mental and physical deterioration, dementia
or death.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #454545; text-align: justify;">Over the years, I have not been prone to
denial, the most logical explanation for my behavior, and my physical health is
good - although I do take blood pressure and cholesterol medications, not
uncommon for gentleman my age.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #454545; text-align: justify;">Oh, I forgot to mention that I started reading
many psychology articles and textbooks - I keep up with the literature and
don't miss an opportunity to cruise the shelves of psychology texts in college
book stores I visit across the country seeking out the current requirements for
a Ph.D. in psychology. Not only do I read as much as I can, but I tell my wife about
my cravings to collect these journals and textbooks - to my wife it appears I'm
studying for exams. All of this reading can be traced to the many seminars I'm
asked to present around the country; okay, that's not exactly the truth.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #454545; text-align: justify;">After much consideration, I fear I have a yet
undiscovered serious psychiatric disorder that in some way mimics those few men
I see in my practice who tell me they feel they have a female genotype - a
concept I use metaphorically - trapped inside their male phenotype. These men
are convinced they are females and that the world has played a cruel trick on
them. In fact, their fear of not living as females is stronger than their fear
of death; some grand existential dilemma.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #454545; text-align: justify;">Bear with me as I briefly outline what I have
come to think as my existential crises: I am an early career psychologist
trapped inside a 74-year-old body. After all my years of immersing myself in
the lives of others, I'm aware how easily our minds adopt beliefs, opinions,
and facts used to justify our actions. As that astute philosopher David Hume
reminds us, the intellect is a slave to our passions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #454545; text-align: justify;">So as a scientist, skeptic and a life-long
worshipper of reason, I set out to test my passion-driven beliefs examined
under the light of intensive psychotherapy, peering into my unconscious,
preconscious, conscious, defense mechanisms and neurotransmitters. To do this,
I took a sabbatical from my work and committed myself to challenging my
beliefs, or at least attempting to understand them, by subjecting myself to the
psychotherapy by the best clinicians I could find who practiced psychoanalysis,
cognitive behavioral therapy, pharmacotherapy, and various other approaches. I
took carefully monitored trials of antidepressant and antipsychotic
medications.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #454545; text-align: justify;">I am embarrassed but not surprised to report
the early career psychologist continues to live and grow inside of me despite
excellent psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Of course, I have not revealed my
preoccupation to my wife or any of my friends or colleagues. In the old days -
during my training as a psychologist- my behaviors were called a perversion.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #454545; text-align: justify;">So, I confine my early career psychologist behaviors
in my attic in my home - three late evenings a week for two hours after my wife
goes to sleep. I've given up on being cured. Over my own years of practice, I
have learned that the word "cure" is not often applied to psychiatric
maladies. Consequently, I have come to accept the advice of Sigmund Freud:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #454545; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A man should
not strive to eliminate his complexes, but to get into accord with them; they
are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.</span></i></p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-76143869446765817662022-12-02T20:37:00.002-05:002022-12-02T20:38:03.558-05:00<p> </p><div class="WordSection1">
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background: #2D68BC; border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid #2D68BD .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 191; width: 100%px;">
<tbody><tr style="height: .8in; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="background: #BADBF5; border-bottom: none; border: solid #2D68BD 1.0pt; height: .8in; mso-border-left-alt: solid #2D68BD .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid #2D68BD .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid #2D68BD .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 100.0%;" width="100%">
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #234fb5; font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: #0400;">Notes of a Psychology Watcher<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #234fb5; font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: #0400;">Some Guiding
Principles for the Assessment of <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #234fb5; font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: #0400;">Psychological
Disorders in Children and Adolescents<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="en-US" style="color: #234fb5; font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: #0400;">Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D.</span><span lang="en-US" style="color: #234fb5; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 14.85pt; mso-yfti-irow: 1; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border-bottom: none; border-left: solid #2D68BD 1.0pt; border-right: solid #2D68BD 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 14.85pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid #2D68BD .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid #2D68BD .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 100.0%;" width="100%">
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</div><p>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-break-type: section-break; page-break-before: auto;" />
</span>
</p><div class="WordSection2">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 6.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Times-Roman;"> </span></p>
</div><p>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-break-type: section-break; page-break-before: always;" />
</span></p><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify;">Take a developmental perspective. What is normal at age
one year is abnormal at age five years. Remember that a child may be
chronologically 10 years old, mentally 14 years old, emotionally seven
years old, and physically 13 years old.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify;">Be aware of the pervasiveness of comorbidity in childhood
psychological disorders. It is rare for a youngster – or an adult – to
have one problem. With physical problems, children can have a broken leg,
Crohn’s disease, and need glasses. The same is true for psychological
disorders.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify;">During your interviews – with parents and youngsters,
remain neutral. Your ability to manage transference and
countertransference is crucial in forming a treatment alliance and
obtaining accurate information. Don’t criticize or blame parents. Pay
attention to your tone of voice and nonverbal behaviors. Stay humble –
especially if you have not lived personally through the family stage of
the child you are evaluating (e.g. if you have never been the parent of an
adolescent) - listen and learn. It is difficult to listen your way into
trouble. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify;">When you have enough information, do not be afraid to
“label” a child. A label or diagnosis is helpful for communication,
treatment, and prediction. Diagnosis is prognosis. When a child gets an
accurate diagnostic label that leads to effective treatment, you may
prevent the child and his family from experiencing years of doctor
shopping, and intense emotional pain. You may help steer the child and the
family into a more normal course of development.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify;">Evaluate the following categories:<o:p></o:p></li>
</ol><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->A.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Neurological: Disease/Disorder, e.g. autism, schizophrenia,
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, pervasive developmental disorder, or
learning disabilities.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->B.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Constitutional
factors<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 85.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->1.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Temperament,
e.g. activity level; patterns of movement; regularity; distractibility;
approach versus withdrawal; adaptability; persistence; intensity of reaction –
positive or negative affect; sensitivity; quality of mood.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 85.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->2.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Personality
traits, e.g. openness, conscientiousness, extrovert, agreeable, neurotic<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 85.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->3.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Intellectual
and academic resources<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 85.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->4.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Attachment
behavior: ways of construing and behaving in close relationships <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 85.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->5.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Parental
expectations: constructive vs.
destructive<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 85.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->6.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Parenting
styles: authoritarian, authoritative,
permissive, neglectful<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level2 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->a.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Parental warmth and responsiveness to the child<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level2 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->b.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->The family’s control of the child and the demands they
place on the child. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 85.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->7.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Peer
relationships<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 85.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->8.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Life
events <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 85.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->9.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Influences
of school, community, and culture<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt;">NOTE: Development is a two-way street. Parents and
children mold each other. Children are not blank slates, but share half of
their parents’ genes. Be cautious drawing conclusions of what parents’
behaviors may “cause” a child’s behavior --- research traces correlation, not
causality.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt;"><i>Babies control and bring up their families as much as they are
controlled by them; in fact, the family brings up the baby by being brought up
by him or her. </i>--- Erik Erikson <i><o:p></o:p></i></p><ol start="6" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">The more psychologically
disturbed the parents, the more unreliable their history of their family
and child.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">A common error in
assessing children and adolescents is not to get teachers’ observations
and information about peer relationships. It is useful to review a sample
of the child’s report cards from early on to the present grade level,
especially the teachers’ comments. A well-liked child with close chums is
less vulnerable to future behavioral and emotional troubles. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">While observing and
participating in play with children is important in uncovering
preoccupations and possible symbolic meanings, using play techniques alone
do not allow you to assess specific symptoms and to make a diagnosis. To
make a diagnostic judgment based on symptoms, you need to develop specific
questions geared to the child’s developmental stage. Tools such as the
K-SADS are helpful semi-structured interviews that promote differential
diagnoses. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Psychological testing,
especially assessing intellectual and academic resources, are important
parts of an evaluation. For example, emotional disorders such as
depression and anxiety can be secondary to psychological demoralization
caused by Specific Learning Disorders, and/or neurological disorders such
as Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and/or family stress. If a
child achieves at grade level, it does not mean that the child is
performing near his intellectual abilities. Psychological testing allows
you to uncover unknown intellectual resources of a youngster that can
boost his morale and offer opportunities to enhance skills. A frequent
outcome of intellectual assessment is to uncover a child’s significant
strengths in nonverbal reasoning abilities. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">It is crucial to take a
comprehensive family history to make a diagnosis of children’s problems.
You can always improve the accuracy of your diagnosis if you know the
details of the family history. To boost your diagnostic acumen, ask the
youngsters’ parents questions in at least the following areas of the
family history:<o:p></o:p></li>
</ol><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->A.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Who
does your child take after? Don’t accept “She’s her own unique person.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->B.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Ask
about a family history of learning disabilities. Does anybody in the family
have trouble with reading, spelling, math or writing, or was any family member in
special classes? Be alert to family members who change jobs a lot, or have a
history of underachievement at work. You will be surprised how many people have
trouble with spelling.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->C.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Ask
about a family history of hyperactivity, distractibility, and impulsivity. For
hyperactivity, ask about family members who have trouble doing nothing, or are
live wires, or frequently exercise. For distractibility, ask about people who
have trouble filtering out external distractions, and have trouble with reading
comprehension. For impulsivity, ask about people with firecracker tempers as
opposed to people with slow-burn tempers, or brooding. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->D.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Ask
about a family history of trouble with the law: gamblers, con-artists, crooks,
barroom brawlers.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->E.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Ask
about a history of excessive use of alcohol and or drugs, including
prescription drugs. Ask about family members who have been arrested for drunk
driving or substance use.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->F.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Ask about a history of depression and bipolar disorder.
For depression, use such terms as down in the dumps, sad, crying, miserable,
and unhappy. Ask about feeling cranky, irritable or easily upset. Ask about
whether there are times the adolescent’s energy level is very high or very low;
whether during the high periods the adolescent spends a lot of money, takes on
too many activities; is more sexual, seems strange or annoying to others; in
the low periods if the adolescent needs to stay in bed more and feels hopeless
and suicidal.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->G.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Ask
about whether there are things the child feels compelled to do over and over
again like touching, counting or checking even though she knows her behavior may
not make sense. Ask about bothersome thoughts that won’t go away.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->H.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Ask
about going on a diet and whether friends or family get worried. Ask about
whether the youngster is afraid of gaining weight. Ask if the adolescent has
times when they eat a large amount of food in a short time. Ask about the
youngster’s exercise routine, or making themselves throw up. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level2 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->a.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Ask if the child feels that somebody is out to hurt or
harm them; if the youngster ever felt people are talking about them behind their
back; if the adolescent thinks somebody is spying on them; if the youngster’s
eyes ever play tricks on them. Ask: Do you see people or visions that other
people don’t see? Ask if their ears play tricks on them --- hearing voices that
others don’t hear. Ask: Do these voices tell you what to do, or interfere with
you daily life? <o:p></o:p></p><ol start="11" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1;"> Ask about worries such as being away from
parents and worries about your parents getting hurt. Ask whether the
youngster thinks he worries more than other kids.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1;"> Ask the youngster about getting into
fights, using a weapon, stealing things, lying about his actions, starting
fires, and threatening people. Ask whether the adolescent feels he can get
emotionally close to people.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">You should recommend to
the child and her parents what they need, not just what you have to offer.
For example, with experience, it will occur to you when to refer a
youngster to consider pharmacotherapy. <o:p></o:p></li>
</ol><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i>As far as I’m concerned
I have had great help from medical colleagues used to the administering of the
modern drugs…In all of these cases the therapeutic use of drugs did not in any
way interfere with the progress of the analysis, quite the contrary it helped
the analysis to maintain itself during phases when otherwise the patient might
have had to be hospitalized. </i>--- Anna Freud<i><o:p></o:p></i></p><ol start="14" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal">Every youngster must have
a medical evaluation before you diagnose psychological disorders.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">The more diagnoses the
child has the more complicated the management of the problems. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Don’t be afraid to get
help from colleagues. We do not understand the etiology of any
psychological disorder. Our diagnostic manual is akin to a birdwatcher’s
field guide --- we can describe clusters of symptoms but do not understand
why these symptoms go together. <o:p></o:p></li>
</ol><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt;">As psychologists, we are about
at the level of chemistry before Mendeleev began to fill in the periodic table
of elements.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt;">Much of our therapeutic efforts
are based on rules of thumb that are difficult to prove, and these notions are
vulnerable to crank ideas such as false memories of child sexual abuse and
fights between theoretical factions within the field.<o:p></o:p></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
</span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt;">Not all psychological problems
fit neatly into our diagnostic categories. These categories continue to evolve.
Diagnosis deferred, or I don’t know is acceptable. Not all problems have ready
solutions. When in doubt, tell the truth.<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Times-Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p><br /></p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-46836980145541887732022-06-25T14:37:00.000-04:002022-06-25T14:37:31.938-04:00<div>June 25, 2022</div><div><br /></div><div>Meet Dr. Steven Ceresnie!</div><div> </div><div>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D., may not quite be the quintessential Renaissance Man,</div><div>but if he is not then he will do until one comes along.</div><div> </div><div>Consider these items on his resume: Staff Psychologist at Hawthorn Center, a</div><div>psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents in Northville, Michigan; former</div><div>President of the Michigan Psychological Association; Michigan Representative to</div><div>the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association; faculty</div><div>member in Behavioral Science at the University of Detroit-Mercy, School of</div><div>Dentistry; Independent practice of psychology with children, adolescents, and</div><div>adults for more than 40 years; Fellow of the Michigan Psychological Association;</div><div>Beth Clark Service Award winner with MPA; Distinguished Psychologist Award by</div><div>MPA; Editorial Board member for The Michigan Psychologist.</div><div> </div><div>In addition, Dr. Ceresnie is a voracious reader, who frequently comments on</div><div>books he’s read for The Michigan Psychologist, writes a blog called “Notes of a</div><div>Psychology Watcher,” is considered to be the resident humorous for the MPA</div><div>newsletter, maintains his long-time interest in jazz, and finds time to be a</div><div>husband, father and grandfather to two young children.</div><div> </div><div>He earned his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Wayne State University</div><div>1976, and then went on to do a Post-Doctoral Internship at Hawthorn Center.</div><div><br /></div><div>Following his internship, he became a staff member at Hawthorn Center for 10</div><div>years working with children and adolescents. He started his private practice in</div><div>Plymouth in 1979 and still sees patients.</div><div> </div><div>Dr. Ceresnie met his future wife, Patty, during the summer of 1968 at a resort in</div><div>South Haven, Michigan. Patty, a singer, was booked in from Chicago as the</div><div>vocalist for the band at the resort. As he recalls, “I was attracted to Patty</div><div>because she was small, like me, was physically very attractive, had a beautiful</div><div>smile, liked to laugh, she was a terrific singer – and she liked my jokes.” After a</div><div>summer together, Patty lived with her parents in Livonia, then went back to Los</div><div>Angeles where she lived for a while after attending one year of college in her</div><div>home town of Des Moines. “She returned to live with her parents in Livonia in</div><div>1971 because of a major earthquake in L.A. and hoping to renew our</div><div>relationship,” Ceresnie says. “Within weeks after returning Patty joined a popular</div><div>wedding band as their singer and we renewed our relationship and married in</div><div>1973.” </div><div> </div><div>After they were married, Patty was the leader of a local wedding and party band</div><div>for many years. She recently wrote a book (“Bobby Had Game”) about her</div><div>famous father who managed African-American barnstorming basketball teams.</div><div>She and Steve have two daughters, Sharon, a lawyer, and Barb, who works as a</div><div>supervisor staffing sports arenas. Sharon, who lives in Ann Arbor and is married</div><div>to a psychologist, has two children – Charlie, age 10, and Mia, age 8.</div><div> </div><div>Dr. Ceresnie began teaching at the University of Detroit - Mercy School of</div><div>Dentistry in the late 1970s. He says that he was asked to teach adolescent</div><div>psychology to the five students in the two-year Orthodontics graduate program.</div><div>“Then I taught behavioral issues to students in dental school,” he recalls. “My</div><div>course content included teaching communication skills, dealing with anxious</div><div>patients, understanding psychopathology and more.” After 40 years, he retired</div><div>from UD-M in 2019.</div><div> </div><div>He says that he loved teaching for the reasons noted in a quote from Joseph</div><div><br /></div><div>Epstein: </div><div> </div><div>“A few years after I began teaching, it occurred to me that being a teacher - not</div><div>being a student - provides the best education. ‘To teach is to learn twice,’ wrote</div><div>Joubert, in a simple-sounding maxim that could have several different meanings.</div><div>It could mean that one first learns when getting up the material one is about to</div><div>teach and then tests and relearns it in the actual teaching. It could mean that</div><div>being a teacher offers one a fine chance of a second draft of one&#39;s inevitable</div><div>inadequate initial education. It could mean that learning, like certain kinds of</div><div>love, is better the second time around. It could mean that we are not ready for</div><div>education, at any rate of the kind that leads to wisdom, until we are sixty, or</div><div>seventy, or beyond. I favor this last interpretation, for it accounts for the strange</div><div>feeling that I have had every year of my adult life, which is that only twelve</div><div>months ago I was really quite stupid.”</div><div> </div><div>As a decades-long member of MPA, he still enjoys being involved with the</div><div>organization. When asked what he likes about MPA,” he replied: “Meeting</div><div>psychologists across the state, participating on committees, and keeping up with</div><div>legislative activities.” He adds that over the years, he has learned much from his</div><div>MPA peers. And he recalls, “In the 1990s, I was chair of the Program Committee,</div><div>and our committee invited well-known psychologists to present at conferences. I</div><div>particularly enjoyed picking up our guest speakers at the airport and getting to</div><div>talk to them.”</div><div> </div><div>One particular encounter stands out for him. “I had the privilege of picking up</div><div>Martin Seligman at the airport, and the next evening have a gathering of MPA</div><div>members at my house to meet Dr. Seligman, who I now called Marty.”</div><div> </div><div>But, before taking Seligman to his hotel, Dr. Ceresnie took Marty to a local</div><div>delicatessen for dinner. “Back then, Marty was a serious fellow, and we were</div><div>soon embroiled in a discussion on the topic of sexuality,” Ceresnie recalls. “I had</div><div>worked in a child psychiatric hospital for many years and treated many</div><div>adolescent males brought in for inpatient treatment because of a history of</div><div><br /></div><div>sexual perversions – a label not used now. As we waited for our dinner in the</div><div>crowded deli, Marty shared some of his experiences treating this sample of</div><div>youngsters and stressed the importance of classical and operant conditioning</div><div>models of etiology and the benefits of cognitive therapy. </div><div> </div><div>“I had found the work of psychoanalyst Robert Stoller, M.D. most helpful in</div><div>treating these trouble youngsters. Stoller had written the book, “Perversion: The</div><div>Erotic Form of Hatred,” emphasizing the role of unconscious learning. The part of</div><div>our dinner I will never forget is this: Marty said in so many words that my views</div><div>were not up with the current research and then he gently raised his voice and</div><div>said, ‘Let’s take masturbation for an example.’ I noticed several restaurant</div><div>patrons turn their heads our way, and then I said to Marty, ‘Maybe we should</div><div>discuss masturbation another time. You’re leaving town tomorrow, and I’m a</div><div>regular customer at this deli.’ We both smiled.” </div><div> </div><div>As for hobbies, Steve Ceresnie says his hobbies include, in addition to reading,</div><div>listening to music, listening to podcasts and watching movies. He enjoys his</div><div>family and his grandchildren. And he says that he still enjoys the challenge of</div><div>doing evaluations and psychotherapy. “especially enjoy the privilege of helping</div><div>people.” And he adds: “The human condition is so varied even after so many</div><div>years of work, that surprises still occur.” </div><div>As previously mentioned, he is an avid reader. Books currently on his nightstand</div><div>include Healing. Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health by Thomas Insel;</div><div>When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce; ADHD 2.0 New Science and</div><div>Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction --- from Childhood Through</div><div>Adulthood by Edward M. Hallowell, and John J. Ratey; Happiness. The Science</div><div>Behind Your Smile by Daniel Nettle; and Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene</div><div>Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson.</div><div> </div><div>Don’t even ask the number of books he has read in the last year.</div><div> </div><div>He comments that he reads so many books because “I enjoy learning from so</div><div><br /></div><div>many intelligent and wise people and using my imagination in delightful ways.”</div><div> </div><div>How did he become hooked on books? “That happened in elementary school,</div><div>and was strongly encouraged by my maternal grandfather,” he says. “I would tell</div><div>my grandfather about the books I read. I had a close, warm relationship with</div><div>him. He was born in Russia and came here in his early 20’s. Some of his</div><div>motivation to get me to read and do well in school was because he started</div><div>college as an engineering student but had to drop out because he did not have</div><div>enough money to pay for his education. He hoped I would value education. He</div><div>then opened up a barber shop in downtown Detroit, a trade he practiced in</div><div>Russia. Because of his politics and sense of humor, I’ve thought my grandfather</div><div>was an equal combination of Karl and Groucho Marx.”</div>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-28539113844646988422022-06-17T13:53:00.000-04:002022-06-17T13:53:04.124-04:00<p> "It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances."</p><p>--- Oscar Wilde</p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-44738085090100720962022-01-02T15:11:00.001-05:002022-01-02T15:11:29.873-05:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Book Review<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Powers, Ron. “No One Cares About Crazy People. The Chaos and
Heartbreak of Mental Health in America.” New York:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hatchette Books, 2017.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ron Powers promised his wife, Honoree Fleming, he would not
write this book. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But ten years after his guitar prodigy son Kevin hanged
himself in their basement a week before his twenty-first birthday in July 2005,
after struggling with schizophrenia for three years; and then a few years later
his older son Dean started experiencing the symptoms of schizophrenia and had a
psychotic break --- Ron Powers changed his mind.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Powers started to reconsider his promise when he read the
hateful words, “No One Cares About Crazy People,” in an email from Kelly
Rindfleisch, who was Governor Scott Walker’s Deputy Chief of Staff in 2010 uncovered
by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, mocking the horrible treatment of
psychiatric patients in the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex, he was
shocked and angered. Patients treated for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia
were starved, raped, impregnated, and walked around naked.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Powers hopes you will not enjoy his memoir and trenchant review
of the history of mental health treatment in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wants you to be wounded by his book ---
wounded enough to do something about the state of help for the severely mentally
ill in America.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Born in Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain’s hometown, Powers’
works include “Mark Twain: A Life.” With James Bradley, he co-wrote the 2000
number one New York Times Bestseller “Flags of Our Fathers,” made into a movie
by Clint Eastwood. Powers was the first television critic to win the Pulitzer
Prize.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Powers’ writing tears at your guts with his vast knowledge
of our treatment of severe mental maladies, his intimate understanding of
schizophrenia, and his heart-wrenching story of his two sons.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">About his two sons, Powers says, “There is no greater
feeling of helplessness than to watch two beloved sons deteriorate before your
eyes, not knowing what to do to bring them back.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Powers tells us that both of his sons suffered from schizophrenia
and anosognosia. The latter is an inability to understand or have insight into
your mental illness. Despite hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, you think you
are mentally healthy. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Anyone who reads the history of our treatment of the severely
mentally ill in America will feel nauseous, sad and angry. For example, “Life”
magazine ran a story in 1946 with horrid <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pictures of Pennsylvanias Philadelphia State
Hospital at Byberry and Ohios Cleveland State Hospital. Movies such as “The
Snake Pit,” in 1948 showed the hideous treatment of patients in mental
hospitals. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Powers recounts the “good intentions” of President Kennedy’s
1963 legislation that sought to provide more humane care for patients in
psychiatric institutions. This transfer of patients to the community was
prompted by the discovery of “miracle” drugs like the anti-psychotic Thorazine,
aimed to cure schizophrenia. An aim that worked like a powerful rifle that
misses the target.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With the consensus of political liberals and conservatives –
for different reasons, we went from a nationwide peak of around 560,000 beds in
1955, to about 35,000 today --- half of what we need. Without these beds, we
have about one-third of the homeless consisting of the mentally ill; more
psychiatric patients in prisons than in hospitals; the mentally ill clogging
emergency rooms and warehoused in the nursing homes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Powers reminds us how some psychiatrists --- Thomas Szasz,
R.D. Laing, and cult leaders such as the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard,
creator of Scientology, have poisoned the well of psychiatric treatments,
claiming such nonsense that mental illness is a myth. Szasz’s widely read book
“The Myth of Mental Illness” (1961) propelled the antipsychiatry movement.
Szasz wrote:<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: .25in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“My
argument was limited to the proposition that mental illness is a myth, whose
function it is to disguise and thus render more palatable the bitter pill of
moral conflicts in human relations.” </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Powers tells how Szasz teamed up with L. Ron Hubbard of
Scientology fame backed by millions of Scientology member dollars to create the
Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) established in 1969 headquartered in
Los Angeles, California. Its stated mission --- and CCHR continues to this day
– is to “eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health and enact
patient and consumer protection.” On the CCHR website, they write:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>PSYCHIATRY: AN INDUSTRY OF DEATH. Some
protection.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is some good news about progress in treating mental
illness. For example, Congress has authorized 1.1 billion dollars to do an
eight-state demonstration program . Mental Health Act introduced by our
Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow which became law in 2014 and detailed
criteria for treatment centers to become certified community behavioral health
clinics. In 2016 Republican senator Roy Blunt of Missouri introduced a bill to
add funding to 24 states to expand the demonstration program.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 2008 the National Institute for Mental Health launched
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Recovery after an Initial Schizophrenia
Episode </i>project. The NIMH just completed its first trials of the project in
2015 and finds much value in aggressive intervention for first-episode
psychosis (1). <o:p></o:p></p>
<div style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.5pt; border: none; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in;">We have a long road to travel to
bring the research and treatment of severe mental illness out from under the
stigma of treatment and into the mainstream of competent care.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in;">Perhaps the stigma and
humiliation of mental illness will lessen as we discover the biological
etiologies of psychiatric maladies and provide reliable and valid measures of
illnesses of the mind. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Satel,
Sally & Torrey, E. Fuller Torrey. “A Prescription for Mental-Health
Policy.” “National Affairs, Number 31, Spring 2017.<o:p></o:p></p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-49999494120517741952022-01-01T12:25:00.002-05:002022-01-01T12:25:42.490-05:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">BOOK REVIEW:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mankoff,
Robert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“How About Never? Is Never Good
For You? My Life in Cartoons.” New York: Henry Holt and Co. 2014. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Haec enim ridentur vel sola vel<br />
maxime quae notant et designant<br />
turpitudinem aliquam non turpiter.<br />
<br />
An indecency decently put is the<br />
Thing we laugh at hardest.<br />
<br />
--- Cicero<br />
<br />
If you like to laugh – and think, this is the book for you.<br />
<br />
Imagine two guys looking up at a big sign that says STOP AND THINK. One fellow
says to the other: “Sorta makes you STOP AND THINK.” The reaction of these two
fellows is exactly what the cartoons in The New Yorker Magazine make you do –
cartoons that are better described as life drawings requiring you to think
about life’s predicaments and ambiguities, facing the dangers and excitements of
being alive.<br />
<br />
Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor for The New Yorker (TNY), has written a memoir
about his life in cartoons. The topics of TNY cartoons draw on humor from sex,
love, death, parenting, marriage, family, cruelty, fear, jealousy, envy, hate,
identity, character, conscience, desire, mourning and more --- the same topics
that psychologists are up to their ears in.<br />
<br />
Mankoff left psychology graduate school to seek his fortune in drawing
cartoons. He started selling cartoons in 1977, and started working for TNY in
1980. He says he knows all about rejection, being booted out of psychology
graduate school, and submitting thousands of cartoons to TNY before getting his
first cartoon published.<br />
He became the cartoon editor in 1997, about 20 years after selling his first
cartoon. As editor of the magazine, he evaluates more than 500 cartoons every
week, selecting about 10 - 15 for each magazine issue<br />
<br />
Mankoff is most famous for creating the cartoon bank, and for the following
best-selling cartoon:<br />
<br />
An executive is at his desk, on the phone, and looking at his calendar says,
“No, Thursday’s out. How about never?” Is never good for you?”<br />
<br />
His title of his memoir is taken from what might be the most popular cartoon in
the history of TNY. Mankoff remembers how he got the idea for this cartoon. He
was trying to get on the phone with a friend who he wanted to see. That friend
kept saying, “Can we meet this time? Could we do it that time?” And finally
Mankoff says to his so-called friend, “How about never? Is never good for you?”<br />
<br />
Mankoff traces this snotty retort back to his Queens and Bronx New York Jewish
background. The Chapter 1 title is: “I’m Not Arguing, I’m Jewish.” During
childhood, whenever he complained to his mother he was bored, she told him to
bang his head against the wall, Mankoff quips. She taught him boredom was a
luxury.<br />
<br />
He describes his never-boring cartoon editor job as evaluating humor, a much
different process from enjoying humor. He gives an example of a cartoon with 10
possible captions --- and this is the format of the cartoon caption contest
that runs every week in TNY. The readers submit captions to a cartoon on the
page, and the winners of the caption contest are printed. His editing job
consists of picking cartoons with the best captions.<br />
<br />
To evaluate cartoons, Mankoff reports that he is faced with the paradox of
choice, which automatically brings the interference of the judgment process,
short-circuiting the laugh response. So instead of laughing at the cartoon, he
has to judge it.<br />
<br />
In analyzing humor, Mankoff comments about what comics call “the magic of
three.” He says you need a sequence for surprise to make a narrative funny.<br />
<br />
Here is an example of a cartoon with the element of triplets in humor --- a
one, two, and then boom.<br />
<br />
A woman is saying, “I started my vegetarianism for moral reasons, then for
health concerns, and now it’s just to annoy people.”<br />
<br />
The cartoons in TNY, show the very widespread humor taking place in New York,
the circus of the world. Humor makes fun of what’s in the public mind.<br />
<br />
Here are two examples of cartoons about same-sex marriage:<br />
<br />
A couple is looking at TV, and the guy is saying, “Gays and lesbians are
getting married. Haven’t they suffered enough?”<br />
<br />
A couple is in bed, and the guy is saying to the woman, “What’s your opinion of
some-sex marriage?”<br />
<br />
Mankoff appreciates humor that is benign, not speaking truth to power, but
humor directed back at the people who are reading the magazine.<br />
<br />
He describes a theory of humor he calls, “Just the Right Amount of Wrong.” He
says this view emphasizes that humor is different in different contexts. He
says that the mother’s milk of humor is anything that’s embarrassing, guilt- or
anxiety-filled. Mankoff has learned that humor comes in almost endless
varieties: humor based on reality, observational humor, silliness, and playful
incongruity or absurdity.<br />
<br />
An example of an absurd cartoon is:<br />
<br />
It’s a cowboy at a desk. The person sitting in front of him is a cow, and he’s
reading his resume. And the cowboy is saying, “Very impressive. I’d like to
find 5,000 more like you.”<br />
<br />
One cartoon, apparently not for everybody’s taste, shows a rodent in a cage,
and then another picture of a rodent who hung himself. The caption is:
“Discouraging data on the antidepressant.” Mankoff tells about readers who send
in letters saying they don’t like cartoons where animals suffer. Mankoff’s
response: “We use anesthetic ink.” A wise-guy he is.<br />
<br />
Some people are hypersensitive to humor, and some people have little or no
humor. I make it a rule never to use humor with people I don’t like ---- it is
hard to keep my unconscious slips from showing.<br />
<br />
Mankoff notes there have been many cartoons in TNY about the Grim Reaper
because humor is an important way we cope with death, anxiety, suffering and
illness.<br />
<br />
An example of Grim Reaper humor:<br />
<br />
The Grim Reaper is taking away her husband, and the wife is at the apartment
door, and she is saying, “Relax, Harry. Change is good.”<br />
<br />
Cartoons about marriage are another staple of TNY cartoons. Mankoff mentions he
is happily married to his third wife (the magic of three). He says humor is
essential in our attempts to understand our partners and for our partners to
understand us.<br />
<br />
He cites a cartoon on marriage:<br />
<br />
A man is talking to a woman in the living room and he says, “Believe me, Janet,
I consider you an important part of our marriage.<br />
<br />
Mankoff focuses on the links between creativity and humor. He mentions Arthur
Koestler’s book, “The Act of Creation,” in which he connects humor, science and
art.<br />
<br />
Life without a sense of humor is life without any sense of proportion or
perspective.<br />
Where laughter stops, so does common sense.<br />
<br />
As the psychologist William James noted, “Common sense and a sense of humor are
the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense,
dancing.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #565959; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">5
people found this helpful</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-40870013035321640812021-12-31T16:19:00.003-05:002021-12-31T16:19:38.791-05:00<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Book Review: "Chatter. The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It." by Ethan Kross. 2021.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Ethan Kross is an experimental psychologist and neuroscientist who specializes in emotion regulation. He is a professor of psychology and management at the University of Michigan and director of the Emotion and Self Control Laboratory, where he studies the science of the silent conversations or how we talk to ourselves.</span></p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">His book is divided into seven chapters and an appendix outlining the specific tools discussed in the book to reduce anxiety and offer hope.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Much of the talk we say to ourselves is helpful. We plan for an interview; we think about what we want to say in a presentation; we rehearse our conversation with our mother-in-law before Thanksgiving Day dinner; we talk to ourselves about how to apologize to our spouse for our rude behavior and irritability.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Professor Kross, and other neuroscientists, have discovered that we are the authors of our life stories; our brain secretes interpretations of the world to help us create a coherent, sensible, explanation for events and our experiences.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Professor Kross estimates we spend about one-third to one-half of our waking hours talking to ourselves. He says people can think to themselves at a rate that is equal to speaking 4,000 words per-minute out loud.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Sometimes what we say to ourselves backfires. We may catastrophize problems; ruminate through redundant loops of irrational thinking; bombard ourselves with negative thoughts, sabotage our ability to think clearly, and gain access to reams of negative self-talk ---- called chatter.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">This chatter can negatively affect our relationships, our work, and our physical health.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Effective psychological therapy helps us to acknowledge our feelings and experiences, helps us bear our feelings and experiences without distorting reality, and helps us put our feelings and experiences into perspective.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Through peer reviewed research, Professor Kross and his colleagues from all over the world, have identified methods or tools to expand our abilities to acknowledge, bear, and put into perspective our negative self-talk.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">These are times that test our mental health. If you are not anxious now, there is something wrong with you: the uncertainty of the pandemic --- sickness, death, loss; isolation from family and friends; the closing of schools requiring remote learning, a process new to teachers and students, often interfering with a parents’ ability to earn a living and children getting a proper education this year. Economic uncertainty – Will I be able to find another job? Will my business survive? When will I get the vaccine against the Corona virus? Political polarization. I’m not used to staying home with my spouse and children for twenty-four hours a day. I thought marital relationships are for better or worse, but not for lunch. These are only a few of the burdens and stresses preoccupying millions of citizens.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">My lawyer colleagues tell me filings for divorce have increased. Child protective service workers report an increase in domestic violence. Mental maladies such as depression, anxiety disorders, panic attacks, and the horrors of suicide have increased.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Professor Kross offers an array of techniques aimed to reduce stress and anxiety, and to help you put these challenges into perspective. Not all of these tools work for everybody, but you are likely to find some methods that work for you.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Someone said life is like climbing one mountain after another ---- the lifetime challenge is to enjoy mountain climbing.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">An underlying theme of Professor Kross’ creative, eloquent work, is to change your thinking to steady your emotions - to promote more rational thinking, self-control, self-confidence, reduce emotional distress, and find ways to enjoy mountain climbing.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">When he was a boy growing up, Professor Kross said whenever he faced a problem, his father would tell him, “to go inside,” to introspect, and a solution will occur to him. This fatherly advice, helped a lot.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Yet, when Professor Kross took his first psychology class, to his chagrin, he learned the complexities of introspection. He wanted to know more about how to study the benefits of introspection and self-talk.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">In his book, Professor Kross takes us on a tour of tools generated from his lab and those of colleagues, that illuminate research-based methods to use introspection, to drop a bomb, so to speak, to stop self-talk gone crazy.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">These tools, such as distance self-talk, coach us through problems --- talking to ourselves using our own name (not out loud), rather than the pronoun “I” to work through predicaments. Professor Kross has found examples of highly successful people – athletes, courageous young activists, and others who spontaneously make use of this seemingly simple technique.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Another tool is called temporal distancing or mental time travel --- taking our minds into the future, telling ourselves that this pandemic will end, we will see our friends and family, we will get back to a more normal life.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Professor Kross mentions some tools that many of us use that at first, we would not associate with reducing anxiety: cleaning our desk, organizing our clothes in the closet, cleaning the pots and pans. Controlling your outside environment helps us take charge of the internal chatter.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Another tool that may reduce the backfiring chatter in our mind, is the experience of awe ---- we look up at the stars in the sky and realize we are one of billions of planets – maybe our problems are not so overwhelming after all.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Research studies in Professor Kross’ lab tells us we benefit from emotional support when we share our internal chatter with understanding family or friends. But talking about our feelings may bring us closer to the listening friend, but unless we learn ways to broaden our perspective, to reframe our experiences, this venting of chatter may not help.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">No matter how good we get at using the creative, research-based tools in this book, coping with inevitable predicaments, moral dilemmas, atrocities, tragedies, fear, rejection, betrayal and more, maintaining mental stability is an ongoing challenge and process through life.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Is it fair? No. Is it reality? Yes.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Should your mental maladies interfere with your daily life, these psychological tools are some of the building blocks of effective psychological therapy.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Psychological therapy may help reduce this negative chatter. You begin to acknowledge and understand the sources of your emotional distress, enhance your coping strategies, and recognize the breadth of your strengths. With increased knowledge and emotional learning, you not only put your life into a more coherent perspective, but you also learn to face life-predicaments with acceptance, flexibility, courage, tolerance, and the ability to take responsibility for your actions. Your self-talk will reflect these changes.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Psychological therapy and reducing your chatter will not enable a life of contentment. Contentment is for cows. Getting control of your negative chatter may help you start to enjoy mountain climbing.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Most psychological self-help books fit under the category of fiction. Dr. Kross’ book, “Chatter,” is that rare researched based psychology book that gets filed under nonfiction. Do yourself a favor, read this book. You will say to yourself, "thank you."</span></div>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-80064683991546592342021-12-31T16:12:00.000-05:002021-12-31T16:12:03.504-05:00<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Book Review: "A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21rst Century. Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life." by Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein. 2021</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">This provocative book is written by wife and husband evolutionary biologists, Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein. These scientists are unusual. They have the guts to act on their liberal, progressive convictions --- they resigned from their tenured, 15 year long faculty positions at Evergreen College, standing up to the scourge of political correctness.</span></p><div class="a-row a-spacing-small review-data" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 8px !important; width: 640.768px;"><span class="a-size-base review-text review-text-content" data-hook="review-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 20px !important;">They tackle big questions about our species with clarity, wit, and the wide perspective of the evolutionary lens.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />They see humans in the modern world as hyper-novel. They say: “ … humans are extraordinary well adapted to, and equipped for, change. But the rate of change itself is so rapid now that our brains, bodies, and social systems are perpetually out or sync. For millions of years, we lived among friends and extended families, but today many people don’t even know their neighbors’ names. Some of the most fundamental truths – like the fact of two sexes are increasingly dismissed as lies. The cognitive dissonance spawned by trying to live in a society that is changing faster than we can accommodate is turning us into people who cannot fend for ourselves. Simply put, it’s killing us.”<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The authors claim, “if we don’t figure out how to grapple with the problem of accelerating novelty, humanity will perish, a victim of its success.”<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />They understand the need for a revolution to save the human species --- and they comprehend the ancient wisdom to let what works for humans, remain. They rightly observe that most revolutions make things worse ---- we need to respect traditions – such as religious belief and respect for ancient wisdom that informs us what works in our society. They quote the writer G. K. Chesterton who reminds us to be careful when we approach a fence --- we shouldn’t tear down the fence just because we don’t know why the fence is there.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Heying and Weinstein are wedded to first principles – assumptions that cannot be deduced from any other assumptions. They are aware of the naturalistic fallacy of what is or what is natural must be good --- a confusion of fact and value. What is, is not always what should be.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Heying and Weinstein propose practical guidelines for such important topics, and chapter titles as, “Ancient Bodies, Modern World;” “Medicine;” “Sex and Gender,” “Parenting;” “Becoming Adults;” “Culture and Consciousness,” Heying and Weinstein tell us much about their views of human nature informed by evolution.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The following are examples of the “Corrective Lens” offered at the end of each chapter:<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Become skeptical of novel solutions to ancient problems.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Become someone who recognizes patterns about yourself.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Move your body every day.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Do not forget that food is social lubrication for humans.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Develop a ritual in advance of sleep.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Avoid sex without commitment.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Do not succumb to social pressure to embrace easy sex.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Do not helicopter or snowplow your children.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Be the kind of person you want your children to be.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Civilization needs citizens capable of openness and inquiry.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Always be learning.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Get over your bigotry.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Learn how to give useful critique without backing the other person into a corner.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Be barefoot as often as possible.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />• Sit around more campfires.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />For millennia, humans have been sitting around campfires, sharing ideas, bonding with each other and solving problems.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />I welcome the opportunity to sit around a campfire with Drs. Weinstein and Heying, college students, and a group of ideological diverse academics from a variety of disciplines to ask questions, discuss disagreements, and digest more intellectual, gourmet food found in this excellent book.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Because I’m a psychologist with 45 years of experience, I would challenge the authors allergy to psychiatric medications. I’ve witnessed many children, adolescents and adults benefit from these medications, sometimes preventing suicide, major depression, academic and job failures. It’s difficult to get people to take 8 days of antibiotics; and more difficult to get people to take daily psychiatric drugs unless these medicines help. Psychiatric medications treat our “hard drive” and talking therapy treats our “software.” Both talking therapy and pharmacotherapy are often essential for treating mental distress. Humans have the most flexible software of any animal on the planet. A core deficit in our understanding of the mind is we have no clue how our material brain creates our sense of “I” - our sense of self.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />I would like to know how these authors would square their pessimistic view of our world with the writings of psychologist Steven Pinker - “Enlightenment Now,” and the physician, the late Hans Rosling, co-author of, “Factfulness.” Both authors describe the tremendous progress we’ve made in the last 200 years such as reducing world poverty from 90% to 10%; increasing life span; reducing infectious diseases; and much more. Perhaps Pinker and Rosling would say even these brilliant evolutionary biologists are shaped by millions of years of evolution to adopt a negativity bias, keenly aware of threats to our species.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Don’t miss their Dark Horse podcasts.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />To help keep my sanity in this world, I turn to another quote of G. K. Chesterton: “He is a sane man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.”</span></div><div><span class="a-size-base review-text review-text-content" data-hook="review-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 20px !important;"><br /></span></div><div class="a-row review-comments comments-for-RPG3D5IRWNWOC" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; width: 640.768px;"><div class="a-row a-expander-container a-expander-inline-container cr-vote-action-bar" data-a-expander-name="review_comment_expander" data-reftag="cm_cr_srp_d_cmt_opn" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 640.768px;"></div></div>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-37802680005681826072021-12-31T15:10:00.002-05:002021-12-31T15:10:35.331-05:00<p><br /></p><p>December 31, 2021</p><p>Book Review: "When Men Behave Badly," by David Buss. 2021</p><p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">If you are interested in sexual conflicts, sexual desire, and mating, read this book.</span></p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The evolutionary lens examines the hidden roots of sexual conflict, lurking in plain sight once you understand the empirical research findings presented in this important book.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Sexual conflicts stem in part from evolved sex differences that underly the sexual psychology of females and males.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">These sexual conflicts show up in relationships between the sexes: sexual harassment; intimate partner violence; sexual assault by strangers, acquaintances and those who claim to be lovers; and stalking in the aftermath of breakups.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">For example, Andrew Cuomo is the most recent of too many men who treat women as sexual prey. The 165 page report prepared by Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York investigating Governor Cuomo, highlights his behavior: buttocks grabbing, breast grabbing, leering comments and questions such as, “Have you cheated on your husband?” “Have you been with older men?” “Would you find me a girlfriend?” Cuomo saw a woman state trooper who worked for him and got her assigned to his security detail and then tagged her for harassment.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Buss reminds us that biologists define sex by the size of the gametes. Males have small gametes - sperm - DNA packed with 23 chromosomes, and a flagellum or outboard motor. Females have large gametes with 23 chromosomes and nutrient filled eggs.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Human males make several million sperms per day or about 1,500 per second. Males release anywhere from 20 to 300 million sperm cells in a single milliliter of semen.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">For females, during fetal life there are about 6 to 7 million eggs produced. From this time no new eggs are produced. At birth, there are approximately 1 million eggs; by puberty, only 300,000 eggs remain. Of the remaining eggs, only 300 to 400 will be ovulated during a women’s reproductive years.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Men can produce a child with sexual intercourse (in minutes some women say) with no further investment. Women require a metabolically costly nine months of internal gestation to produce that same child, often accompanied by months of breast feeding.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Dr. Buss develops many research based findings to help us understand sexual conflict and why some men behave badly.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">These evidenced based concepts include:</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Short-term vs Long-term mating strategies</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">“I was looking for a lifetime lover, and she was looking for a friend.”</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">—- Jim Croce</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Attractive Discrepancies</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Types of Sexual Deception - including common deceptions in computer dating sites</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Intimate Partner Violence</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Stalking</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Number of Reported Sexual Partners for Males and Females</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Distortions in Males Regarding Perceived Cues of Female Sexual Interest</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Affairs in Males and Females</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Jealousy in Males and Females</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Mate Guarding</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Backup Mates</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Dark Triad of Personality Traits in Men Who Behave Badly…and more.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I especially liked Chapter 3: “Struggles Within Mateships,” which includes a section on, “The Evolutionary Recipe for Mating Harmony.”</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Go to YouTube to listen to Dr. Buss talk with many perceptive interviewers. I particularly liked Dr. Michael Shermer’s interview with Dr. Buss.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I recommend reading, “The Evolution of Human Sexuality,” by Don Symons, a classic text Dr. Buss mentions in many of his interviews.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Professor Buss concludes his book with the following trenchant remarks:</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">“Men’s sexual violence toward women remains the most widespread human rights problem in the world.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> Deep knowledge of men’s and women’s sexual psychology will help create conditions to reduce sexual violence. Information about the evolutionary of sexual conflict will help. Knowledge that women are not passive pawns in a male game will help. Progress rests with the recognition of a fundamental change in sexual morality—-that women themselves, not boyfriends, husbands, or fathers, should have sole autonomy over their own bodies. Female choice about when, where, with whom, and under what conditions they consent to sex is the deepest and most fundamental component of women’s sexual psychology. It is a fundamental human right. Although men have coevolved strategies to undermine it, that freedom of choice should never be compromised. A deep understanding of coevolution of sexual conflict in humans will not magically solve all problems. But I am convinced it is the light and the way.”</span><div><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Amen.</span></div>Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-19455718456101699022018-11-07T17:57:00.003-05:002018-11-07T17:57:44.214-05:00Psychiatrists: Heal Thyself<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
11/7/18. Diagnosing public figures --- What happened to the Goldwater Rule?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/psychiatrically-diagnosing-public-figures">https://www.city-journal.org/psychiatrically-diagnosing-public-figures</a></div>
Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-18958545275475338322018-10-31T17:50:00.002-04:002018-10-31T17:50:34.487-04:00The Case for Puns<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
October 31, 2018.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://qz.com/1344927/the-case-for-puns-as-the-most-elevated-display-of-wit/?mc_cid=565390f85e&mc_eid=01571cdef9">https://qz.com/1344927/the-case-for-puns-as-the-most-elevated-display-of-wit/?mc_cid=565390f85e&mc_eid=01571cdef9</a></div>
Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-81601312128903244642018-10-29T18:52:00.003-04:002018-10-29T18:52:51.752-04:00Review of "The Hope Circuit," by Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: #ff6600; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">NOTES OF A PSYCHOLOGY WATCHER</span></b><span style="color: #ff6600; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Random Thoughts and Observations<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #ee5624; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;">By Steven J. Cersenie, Ph.D.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Virtue</span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> A most important virtue is tolerance based
on humility. Tolerance is welcoming discussions with people who fundamentally
disagree with us based on humility - a recognition we cannot be sure we are
right about our beliefs. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chance</span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> We underestimate the importance of chance,
accident, and luck in the events of our lives. Sure, hard work and character
are important in achieving success, but reflecting on our lives highlights
whatever success we achieve in relationships and work has much to do from more
than just a little bit of luck.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Make Waves</span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Heard from a client who owns a sailboat
about his friend's behavior:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My friend is always making waves in a no wake zone.</span></i><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Heard from a talented handyman</span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;">I'm having such a bad day, I can't even do wrong right.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Martin Elias Peter Seligman, Ph.D. </span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Martin E. P Seligman. <i>The Hope Circuit. A Psychologist's
Journey from Helplessness to Optimism.</i> New York: The Hachette Book Group,
2018.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Seligman begins his story about his journey
from helplessness to optimism by describing the world as he found it when he
arrived "one gestation period after Pearl Harbor." Both his parents
had troubled lives - far from the optimism Seligman would later research and
apply to the lives of many. His mother was born in Hungary, now Romania - his
grandmother died giving birth to his mother Irene. Irene became the center of
his father's love and attention until his father remarried and turned all his
attention from his daughter Irene to his new wife. Seligman's mother, Irene,
always felt the horrible sting of rejection. His father's parents had
emigrated from the Dutch border of Germany and from Alsace, and married in
New York in 1899. Seligman's father was an anxious child who skipped four
grades in school. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Seligman describes his father as "a brilliant
young lawyer, armed with a doctorate from Columbia Law School." It was
the second year of the Great Depression; lawyers were making a living, but
many were poor. His father chose a secure path taking a job in civil service,
reporting judges' decisions at the Court of Appeals in Albany, New York.
Seligman describes his mother as, "gorgeous - there is no other word:
five-foot-one, full-figured, blonde, and blue-eyed. She was well-spoken but
reserved and very sympathetic of manner..." Her parents' poverty took a
toll on her, and she dropped out of high school to help support the family as
a legal secretary. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> In Albany, Seligman's parents joined a conservative
synagogue. To Seligman's dismay, he later learned his father was an atheist -
although his mother was very strongly attached to Judaism. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Seligman was named for his saintly maternal
grandfather who died of a sudden heart attack in 1940. Elias was chosen as
his middle name to honor his grandfather and his six-year-old sister was
given naming rights to call him Peter. So he was named Martin Elias Peter
Seligman.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> There is much more detail in his elegantly
written book about his family background and his early years. A detail that
caught my eye was about Seligman, who like one of my younger entrepreneurial
brothers, took a job in his early teens selling magazines for five summers.
He made more money selling magazines than he made until he was an associate
professor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Jumping ahead to his college years, Seligman
was strongly influenced by Robert Nozick (1938 - 2002), a professor of
philosophy at Princeton, where Seligman did his undergraduate study. Nozick
was famous for his 1974 magnum opus, <i>Anarchy, State and Utopia</i>. In
this classic text, Nozick wrote that he believed in capitalist acts between
consenting adults - an unusual belief for a college professor during those
years. Seligman wasn't sure whether to pursue psychology or philosophy.
Looking back, Seligman asked the question, "How much rigor? How much
reality?" These questions formed Seligman's role in the transformation
of psychology over the next fifty years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Seligman spent his 50-year psychology career
rejecting psychology's basic premises. When he came to psychology, he found
help for psychological maladies focused on people's misery and suffering,
with Freud and his followers developing treatments hoping to remove the
crippling conflicts and memories stemming from childhood experiences. The
best humans could accomplish according to this approach was to turn
hysterical misery into common unhappiness. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Early in his career, Seligman discovered
learned helplessness, where animals and people were exposed to uncontrollable
events such as shock or noise and then developing passivity and learning to
give up. Over many years, learned helplessness has become a model for
studying and treating depression. Seligman noted that when studying learned
helplessness, about three of either people couldn't be made helpless, that
is, these three people were invulnerable to being helpless. Thus, began his
study of the components of optimism and he took techniques from cognitive
therapy to teach pessimistic people to be optimistic. I particularly liked
the chapter where Seligman discovers he was wrong about the causes of learned
helplessness based on new research on the neurological underpinnings of The
Hope Circuit. This chapter is worth the price of the book. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> In 1998, Seligman was elected President of
the American Psychological Association with the largest number of votes of
any APA President. During his Presidency of APA and beyond, Seligman created
Positive Psychology, a view that there is a lot more to life than suffering, and
built his research efforts on what makes life worth living. The alleviation
of suffering is only the start to what psychologists can do for their clients
- human happiness matters. Positive psychology is now a worldwide movement to
enhance well-being and attracting some of the best psychologists in the field
who have turned their research interests to what makes people live better
lives. Seligman and his colleagues have taken his studies of positive
psychology, resilience, post-traumatic growth, optimism and more and applied
these mind-enriching concepts to people around the world in schools,
corporations, and our service people in the United States Army.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> During his career, Seligman challenged the
belief that we are creatures whose minds are blank slates, where experience
is all important and writes what we take in from our senses to stamp-in
experiences on these blank slates- a core tenet of early behaviorism - a
theory that didn't take conscious experience seriously; nor did this approach
incorporate the findings of evolution seriously.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> The blank slate view of humans is personal for me.
I remember the first time I evaluated an autistic child while working at a
child psychiatric state hospital in the 1970's. I met two warm, loving,
guilt-ridden parents telling me through their tears about their unresponsive,
odd five-year-old child who didn't talk and was obsessed with playing with
door knobs and hinges. When this child entered my office, he walked past me
as if I wasn't there, and went straight to the curtains and began sucking on
the cloth. Back then, the prevailing theory was autism was caused by the
child being raised by a cold "refrigerator mother," a theory I
never believed, but an accepted view in the field that caused the suffering
of thousands of children and their families. Scientists have now discovered
the importance of genetics in autism - and in all psychiatric disorders and
personality traits. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Seligman not only challenged the belief that
the best outcome humans could achieve from psychological therapy was normal
misery, but he argued against the blank slate view of humans, and stressed
the importance of evolution in human development. With his colleagues, he
showed that not any stimulus paired with any other stimulus would be learned
- a challenge to Pavlovian conditioning. Humans, it turns out, are prepared
to learn some things and not others. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> During his work on Positive Psychology,
incorporating his challenges to psychology's basic premises, Seligman
compiled research evidence and became convinced there are five elements of
well-being, summarized by the acronym: <b>PERMA</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">P</span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ositive emotion<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">E</span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ngagement<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">R</span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">elationship<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">M</span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">eaning<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A</span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ccomplishment<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> On a side note, it was the program committee
of the Michigan Psychological Association who invited Seligman to speak at an
MPA conference in 1996, two years before he was elected APA President.
Seligman, to the surprise of the committee, agreed to speak at the MPA
conference to announce his decision to run for APA President. I had the
privilege of picking Seligman up at the airport, and the next evening have a
gathering of MPA members at my house to meet Dr. Seligman, who I now called
Marty.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Before taking Marty to his hotel, I took
Marty to my local delicatessen for dinner. Back then, Marty was a serious
fellow, and we were soon embroiled in a discussion on the topic of sexuality.
I had worked in a child psychiatric hospital for many years and treated many
adolescent males brought in for inpatient treatment because of a history of
sexual perversions - a label not used now. As we waited for our dinner in the
crowded deli, Marty shared some of his experiences treating this sample of
youngsters and stressed the importance of classical and operant conditioning
models of etiology and the benefits of cognitive therapy. I had found the
work of psychoanalyst Robert Stoller, M.D. most helpful in treating these
trouble youngsters. Stoller had written the book, "Perversion: The
Erotic Form of Hatred," emphasizing the role of unconscious learning.
The part of our dinner I will never forget is this: Marty said in so many
words that my views were not up with the current research and then he gently
raised his voice and said, "Let's take masturbation for an
example." I noticed several restaurant patrons turn their heads our way,
and then I said to Marty, "Maybe we should discuss masturbation another
time. You're leaving town tomorrow, and I'm a regular customer at this
deli."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> We both smiled. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (To comment on this column, contact Steve Ceresnie
at </span><u><span style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="mailto:sceresnie@aol.com" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">sceresnie@aol.com</span></a></span></u><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-5448019963151011402018-10-29T18:47:00.001-04:002018-10-29T18:47:01.815-04:00Satire: Early Career Psychologist: Myth or Malady<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="color: #ee5624; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">NOTES OF A
PSYCHOLOGY WATCHER</span></b><span style="color: #ee5624; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">An Early Career Psychologist: Myth or
Malady?</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Approaching three score and ten years, I
have had the privilege of being invited into the private lives of many people
in deep distress - that's what clinical psychologists do. But lately, I feel my
mind and body are changing - my muscles are becoming more supple, my waistline
is shrinking, my pectoral muscles are taking the shape of a younger man, and I
stop at clothing stores to sample clothing worn by college students and young
men. I have started listening to music that matches the tastes of younger, more
macho males - I find pleasure in rap, heavy metal and alternative music genres.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> On some nights, late in the evenings, I go
up in our finished attic and try on these fashionable attire of young men and
adjust my Spotify to play the latest rap tunes. There are other symptoms I
experience but I'm embarrassed to make these public. I dare not tell my wife, I
fear she would suggest I seek psychiatric help.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Yet psychiatric help, of which I'm most familiar,
is not what I believe I need. Of course, I'm aware that at my chronological age
any number of biological or psychological maladies may explain my unusual
behaviors, not to mention denial of mental and physical deterioration, dementia
or death.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Over the years, I have not been prone to denial,
the most logical explanation for my behavior, and my physical health is good -
although I do take blood pressure and cholesterol medications, not uncommon for
gentleman my age. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Oh, I forgot to mention that I started reading
many psychology articles and textbooks - I keep up with the literature and
don't miss an opportunity to cruise the shelves of psychology texts in college
book stores I visit across the country seeking out the current requirements for
a Ph.D. in psychology. Not only do I read as much as I can, but I tell my wife
that my about the cravings to collect these journals and textbooks - to my wife
it appears I'm studying for exams. All of this reading can be traced to the
many seminars I'm asked to present around the country; okay, that's not exactly
the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> After much consideration, I fear I have a yet
undiscovered serious psychiatric disorder that in some way mimics those few men
I see in my practice who tell me they feel they have a female genotype - a
concept I use metaphorically - trapped inside their male phenotype. These men
are convinced they are females and that the world has played a cruel trick on
them. In fact, their fear of not living as females is stronger than their fear
of death; some grand existential dilemma.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Bear with me as I briefly outline what I have
come to think is my existential crises: I am an early career psychologist
trapped inside an almost 70-year-old body. After all my years of immersing
myself in the lives of others, I'm aware how easily our minds adopt beliefs,
opinions, and facts used to justify our actions. As that astute philosopher
David Hume reminds us, the intellect is a slave to our passions. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> So as a scientist, skeptic and a life-long
worshipper of reason, I set out to test my passion-driven beliefs examined
under the light of intensive psychotherapy, peering into my unconscious,
preconscious, conscious, defenses and neurotransmitters. To do this, I took a
sabbatical from my work and committed myself to challenging my beliefs, or at least
attempting to understand them, by subjecting myself to the psychotherapy by the
best clinicians I could find who practiced psychoanalysis, cognitive behavioral
therapy, pharmacotherapy, and various other approaches. I took carefully
monitored trials of antidepressant and antipsychotic medications.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> I am embarrassed but not surprised to report
the early career psychologist continues to live and grow inside of me despite
excellent psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Of course, I have not revealed my preoccupation
to my wife or any of my friends or colleagues. In the old days - during my
training as a psychologist- my behaviors were called a perversion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> So, I confine my early career psychologist behaviors
in my attic in my home - three late evenings a week for two hours after my wife
goes to sleep. I've given on being cured. Over my own years of practice, I have
learned that the word "cure" is not often applied to psychiatric
maladies. Consequently, I have come to accept the advice of Sigmund Freud:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span style="color: #454545; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> A man
should not strive to eliminate his complexes, but to get into accord with them;
they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-74503202849131246612018-03-01T12:26:00.000-05:002018-03-01T12:26:01.540-05:00What makes Jewish comedy Jewish?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
3/1/18. <br />
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<a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/jewish-comedy-david-baddiel/">https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/jewish-comedy-david-baddiel/</a></div>
Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-22840465914880803802018-01-29T15:21:00.002-05:002018-01-29T15:21:37.245-05:00Victor Davis Hanson: The Second World Wars<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
1/29/18. Edward Short reviews Victor Davis Hanson's new book on the Second World Wars.<br />
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<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/html/classicist%E2%80%99s-view-cataclysm-15688.html">https://www.city-journal.org/html/classicist%E2%80%99s-view-cataclysm-15688.html</a></div>
Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-25300280300861648212018-01-29T15:18:00.000-05:002018-01-29T15:18:55.870-05:00Psychologist Jordan Peterson debates<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
1/29/18. Jordan Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. In this spirited interview, Dr. Peterson debates a challenging interviewer. Dr. Peterson presents information that may surprise you.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54</a></div>
Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-37505052568482823922018-01-19T12:46:00.001-05:002018-01-19T12:46:12.763-05:00Joseph Epstein: Jews and Their Jokes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
1/19/18. A book review to laugh with.<br />
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<a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/jews-and-their-jokes/article/2011118">http://www.weeklystandard.com/jews-and-their-jokes/article/2011118</a></div>
Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-88234612929249709442018-01-15T18:55:00.000-05:002018-01-15T18:55:24.550-05:00Right Questions Wrong Answers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
1/15/18. Charles Murray Lecture at AEI in honor of his 75th birthday. <br />
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<a href="https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/180108-AEI-Right-Questions-Wrong-Answers.pdf">https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/180108-AEI-Right-Questions-Wrong-Answers.pdf</a></div>
Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5093919918310634975.post-40386888965935166642017-12-21T17:16:00.000-05:002017-12-21T17:16:28.560-05:00Jonathan Haidt "Age of Outrage"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
12/21/17. Liberal social psychologist Jonathan Haidt examines the righteous minds of some liberals and conservatives.<br />
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<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/html/age-outrage-15608.html">https://www.city-journal.org/html/age-outrage-15608.html</a></div>
Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07693776573771980004noreply@blogger.com0